


Dancing With Our Hands Tied

by GothicPixi



Series: reputation [5]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst?, Bob - Freeform, Davenport Character Study, Found Family, Friends as Family, IPRE, M/M, TAZ Balance, Taylor Swift - Freeform, Time Skips, davenchurch - Freeform, taz balance spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-14 08:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17504807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothicPixi/pseuds/GothicPixi
Summary: I loved you in secret // My love had been frozen. Deep blue but you painted it golden.Captain Davenport never understood love until Merle Highchurch stayed with the First Church of Fungston. He never thought he’d experience love until Merle Highchurch memorized the preparation for Dav’s three favorite kinds of tea and two favorite blends of coffee. He didn’t believe he was In Love until he didn’t see Merle Highchurch for months in Tesseralia.





	Dancing With Our Hands Tied

_ I loved you in secret // My love had been frozen. Deep blue but you painted it golden. _

 

Captain Davenport never understood love until Merle Highchurch stayed with the First Church of Fungston. He never thought he’d experience love until Merle Highchurch memorized the preparation for Dav’s three favorite kinds of tea and two favorite blends of coffee. He didn’t believe he was In Love until he didn’t see Merle Highchurch for months in Tesseralia. Captain Davenport didn’t do shit about his feelings, for a long time. At the Legato Conservatory, his song spoke about hidden and forbidden love, fear, adventure, and hope. Those emotions were reflected in the pitch of his voice, his volume, his vibrato. Merle didn’t understand music. Merle didn’t get it yet.

 

Merle was the light in Davenport’s life of darkness. He was the Light of Creation to his endless Hunger. That damn dwarf with his beard and his flowers and his dancing. Davenport spent the beginning of their journey freezing himself off, existing solely for the others’ survival. He flew the ship, he helped with research, he repaired the ship, and he organized. Davenport worked. He had no time to play or feel or cry. Captain Davenport was as sturdy and standard as the wheel. Until the first time he died.

 

Cycle 14 was like any other, until it suddenly wasn’t. Davenport was checking the perimeter around where they had parked the Starblaster. The rest of the crew was inside. They’d been in 14 for nearly two months, with little success in finding other intelligent life. They were in the process of tracking down the Light. Davenport was in a crisp white shirt and uniform pants, wand and knife at his hip. He had little time to react when the ground opened beneath him. He grabbed at the surface with one hand while the other sent up a black flare. He threw his wand out of the pit as he fell, as evidence to where he went and proof he was gone. He didn't want to lose his wand - it was his favorite material possession from their home plane. He death was swift, but crunchy.

 

When he returned at the beginning of Cycle 15, he reset in the same position but items in the ship did not. Someone bigger than him had been driving beforehand, which meant the chair was not in the right position. Captain Davenport fell on his ass. They almost hit an asteroid before he got a grip of the controls. The first person to hug him after they were safe was Merle. The others soon joined and they didn’t move for a while. They’d never lost Davenport before. They’d taken him for granted, even he didn’t realize. After that day, he understood what family was.

 

Cycle 15 was a year of bonding with Davenport. The twins took him shopping. He started Lucretia and Magnus on flying lessons. Barry kept the door to the lab open, or he’d move some work onto the bridge. Merle and the captain developed a card game. They spent hours playing together. It led to late dinners, all night discussions, and skipped meetings. Davenport never understood Love until Merle handed him a handmade deck of cards, customized to be in gnomish. “My gnomish is a little rusty.” Merle had said. “Lucretia had to help me, and the Gnomish for Idiots book.” That was the first gift he ever got from Merle.

 

_ Picture of your face in an invisible locket _

 

Davenport wasn’t sure what hung around his neck. Tucked neatly under his blue Bureau of Balance uniform jacket was an object surrounded by static. Whenever he was nervous or scared or bored, his hands twisted around what felt like a charm. Oval shape, maybe a heart, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see it properly, and the only other person who knew about it was Lucretia. She instructed him to leave it out of view.

 

“Davenport?” He came to her not long after she returned from Wonderland, older and sadder. “Davenport.” He held the static in his hand, feeling the...chain? slide along his neck.

 

“It’s a necklace, Davenport, a locket. You can’t see it because I wrote about it in too much detail. I apologize.” He nodded, pat her leg in what he hoped was a comforting manner. She smiled at him and sighed. “It’s been rough, Davenport. I don’t know if you- nevermind. I don’t know how much I can say and I don’t think you like hearing all that static.” Davenport shook his head. “Alright. Have you had a good day?” Davenport messed with his necklace absentmindedly and nodded.

 

“Davenport! Davenport davenport davenport.” Lucretia nodded, eyes watching his hand.

 

“You still do that.” She pointed at his hand that was fiddling with the necklace charm only she could see. It was odd how Junior erased the appearance of the locket, such a common thing. Surely it wasn’t too rooted in their journey?

 

“Davenport?” He quirked his head to the side.

 

“Ever since you got that necklace, you’ve messed with it. It’s a tactile stimulation. I think that’s why he got the larger engravement - so you could feel it properly.” 

 

_ I loved you in spite of deep fears that the world would divide us. _

 

Falling in love while stuck in a never-ending cycle of death and destruction is usually not advisable. When your world is seven people, two of them hooking up isn’t statistically the best idea. Love is a strange thing, and a strong one. Barry and Lup knew it. Merle and Davenport too. Merle was always casually affectionate to all of the Starblaster crew, but with Dav he was different. The others, they were his kids. Dav wasn’t his kid - They were the “Team Dads” as Magnus explained. Dav was handsome, intelligent, strong, loyal, hard working, the list goes on. And to Davenport, Merle was serenity. An oasis away from the mission and the kids and the Hunger. In this terrible place and situation, they found each other, slowly. If Lup and Barry were slow burning, Merle and Davenport still needed to be thawed. They had a pace so unnaturally slow, the rest of the crew were in agonizing pain as to how they hadn’t just done something yet. Soon after the Judges and Lucretia’s Lonely Cycle™, they finally got their shit officially together.

 

Davenport was terrified. Sure, Lup and Barry worked for now - they were young, dumb, and full of...you know. Dav and Merle, they were old. No matter how long their journey got, they were still the oldest developmentally. Merle had a problem with commitment that took him decades to get over. Davenport was running on little to nothing besides spite against the Hunger and all Merle said it stood for. The captain wasn’t going to let some pessimistic asshole steal every possible happy thing he could have. Dav was afraid this wouldn’t work out, but he went along anyway. It wouldn’t hurt in trying. They all believed in New Year’s resolutions. “New cycle, new me”, Taako liked to joke. What a simple way to see it. Everyone else was dust and nothing mattered but them surviving and leaving as much as they could behind. What mattered most was their family.

 

_ I’m a mess but the mess that you wanted. _

 

He remembered. Pan, he remembered so much. Everything. Davenport sat down on the floor of the Starblaster, after landing and watching everyone else leave. They defeated the Hunger. They won. They survived. But who were they now? Who was he, even, anymore? Eleven years of forgetting, acting, playing. He sat and he remembered. His fingers moved to the charm around his neck and he froze. If he truly remembered, the static would be gone. He looked down: a golden chain, a golden oval locket engraved with thick waves on one side and leaves on the other. He opened it to a small painting of Merle. He remembered. Pan, Davenport remembered so fucking much. The sweet morning kisses, the brush of a hand along his shoulders, the dumb presents, the way Merle’s hands trembled when he gave Davenport the necklace. “Lucy drew a little picture of me for the inside.” He said. “Not as good as the real thing, but when you miss me during Parley…”

 

Who was Davenport now? For eleven years, he was trapped as a jester, an assistant, a gnome stereotype. He wasn’t himself, that wasn’t him. The Faerun Merle didn’t know the real Davenport. Davenport didn’t know the real Davenport anymore. So they took it slow. They both had plenty to process. The captain had a lot of shit to unpack. He went to sea. “Joyfully yours” he signed all his letters. “Joyfully yours forever” read the ones in Merle’s mailbox in Bottlenose Cove. The earl made a special dock just for Dav’s ship. He visited as often as he could. They weren’t perfect, but no one ever was. They couldn’t go back to the way they were, but they didn’t want that. The situation was different then. They had to adapt to now. How would they love each other now? How would they understand love now? They’d figure it out. They always seemed to be able to figure things out. Davenport ran a finger along his locket. They were the real thing. They weren’t static or dust. They weren’t trapped, or desperate, or scared anymore.

 

_ I’d kiss you as the lights went out, swaying as the room burned down, hold you as the water rushes in. _

They were the real thing. They were alive. They were together. They were dancing.


End file.
